From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:

BAGHDAD– “People in Baghdad still want to look after animals
despite everything,” 26-year veterinarian Nameer Abdul Fatah told
Agence France-Presse in early January 2008.
“More Muslims keep dogs as pets than is generally believed,”
Fatah added. “There are many expensive dogs like Pekinese in the
city. People keep them inside at home, and don’t take them for
walks because of the danger” associated with life in a war zone.
Trained in small animal medicine in East Germany, Fatah,
46, often treats animals who have been injured in the sectarian
strife that has torn apart Baghdad since the 2003 U.S. invasion. He
acknowledged that “The windows of my car were blown out once, when I
was driving to examine a client’s dog, and another time I got bad
wounds in the leg from shrapnel. But I was never the target,” Fatah
stipulated.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:

BERUIT–Beruit for the Ethical Treatment of Animals cofounder
Marguerite Shaarawi and shelter manager Jason Meir hoped at the
Middle East Network for Animal Welfare conference in December 2007
that Lebanon and their efforts might soon return to normalcy.
Subsequent disappointments including a January 15, 2008 car
bomb attack on a U.S. Embassy vehicle that killed three bystanders
and wounded 21 .
“There has been a drastic increase in bombings over the last
month,” BETA e-mailed to supporters. “Lebanon is without a
president since November, and elections have been delayed more than
ten times. This greatly affects us. Currently we are caring for
more than 350 dogs and cats. Bombings and insecurity make our work
difficult.”
[Contact BETA c/o <www.betalebanon.org>.]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
LUXOR–The most ambitious new
expatriate-directed animal welfare project
underway in Egypt appears to be the construction
of a headquarters for Animal Care in Egypt,
incorporated in Britain in September 1999 by
former International Fund for Animal Welfare
representative Julie Wartenburg.
The domed ACE building, behind a high
wall, from outside resembles a mosque.
Wartenburg had already acquired land and had
begun fundraising to build when ACE in April 2007
received a bequest of £80,900.
“The whole project is for the future as
well as now,” Wartenburg told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
“I knew I only had one hit at it, so when
receiving this heaven-sent legacy, I slightly
enlarged on the original size to provide
everything we may need in the future.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
CAIRO, LUXOR–Percentage-wise, the Egyptian humane movement
may for the first time be growing faster than the Egyptian
populations of street dogs and feral cats. The numbers of
organizations, shelters, mobile clinics, animal hospitals,
volunteers, and local donors are all increasing at an unprecedented
pace.
The Brooke Hospital for Equines, operating in Cairo since
1934, now serves more than 200,000 horses and donkeys each
year–more than it did in all of the first 60 years that it existed.
The Brooke, though the oldest continuously operating animal
welfare society in Egypt, was scarcely the first in Egypt. Eight
Egyptian humane societies were represented at the first
International Humane Congress, held in Washington D.C. in 1910.

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